When you peek outside your window on a rainy day with melancholy filling the breeze and a cup of cocoa in hand, a tear-jerking romantic movie instantly becomes a missing piece of the puzzle. In the sea of heartbreaks, ghosting, and the daily hustle, you sometimes find yourself with the need to feel. And just like yoga is good for your health, sad romance movies are good for your soul.
Whether married to your high school sweetheart or desolate after a bad breakup, complicated romance movies always remind you of the complexities involved when you feel so deeply. The following list helps you skip the endless hunt for a sad romance movie, so get comfy and grab those tissues for the ensuing sob fest. Let’s get started!
1. The Art of Racing In The Rain (2019)
Calling all dog lovers because we’re starting strong with The Art of Racing In The Rain, starring Milo Ventimiglia and Amanda Seyfried. The narrator, Enzo, a Golden Retriever, takes us through his life with Formula One Driver Danny, drawing parallels between the navigation of life and methods used on the race track. It is wholesome, gripping, and heartbreaking — the waterworks keep running with this one.
Watch The Art of Dancing in the Rain on Disney+
2. The Fault in Our Stars (2014)
“Some infinities are bigger than other infinities…” — The Fault in Our Stars is the Bible of terminal illness-themed romance movies. We were all 13 years old once, distraught after a particularly touching eulogy and looking up the symptoms of leukemia. This sweet yet tragic tale of Hazel Grace Lancaster (Shailene Woodley) and Augustus Waters (Ansel Elgort) will leave you weeping, shaking, and begging for more every single time.
Watch The Fault in Our Stars on Disney+
3. Sitting in Bars With Cake (2023)
A movie about love, friendship, and, of course — cake! Sitting in Bars with Cake will have you sending sappy texts to your BFF while hopelessly scouring the fridge for a slice. The story unfolds with Corinne (Odessa A’zion) convincing her baker best friend Jane (Yara Shahidi) to take cakes to bars to boost her dating confidence. It’s a new-age movie that keeps you enthralled — the best part being you weren’t expecting it to turn tragic. You think it’s a romcom, but it leaves you with a more profound and unexpected message about love and friendship.
Watch Sitting in Bars With Cake on Prime Video
4. All the Bright Places (2020)
A left hook to the tear ducts, All The Bright Places is one of those movies that will leave you thinking about it for days. The premise revolves around two unhappy teenagers, Theodore Finch (Justice Smith) and Violet Markey (Elle Fanning), who start as partners for a high school project and eventually fall in love. With past tragedies and trauma looming over them, it is a compelling story about loss, love, and learning to let go.
Watch All the Bright Places on Netflix
5. Chemical Hearts (2020)
Next, we have this Lili Reinhart and Austin Abrams starrer — trust us when we say your life will never be the same again after watching this one! With nuanced details making it especially painful, every time one of the main leads cries, you’d best believe you’ll reach for that box of tissues too. Chemical Hearts explores themes of first love, survivor’s guilt, and how moving on after experiencing loss can be incredibly distressing.
Watch Chemical Hearts on Prime Video
6. Life in a Year (2020)
This Jaden Smith and Cara Delevingne starrer is a surefire recipe for tears. In this offbeat love story, Daryn learns that his terminally ill girlfriend, Isabelle, has only a year left to live. He sets out to make it the best year of her life, creating a checklist of life’s milestones quite literally to fit Life In a Year. He pulls out all the stops in caring for her, and in turn, she helps him stand up against his father’s wishes to pursue a music career — the movie ends with a song he dedicated to Isabelle.
Watch Life in a Year on Apple TV
7. If I Stay (2014)
Find someone who spends days on end strumming their guitar by your bedside, trying to sing you back to life while you lay in a comatose state. This movie about love and loss is a go-to for when you’re looking to feel a thousand emotions all at once. A classic case of opposites attract, If I Stay is the love story of Mia (Chloë Grace Moretz), a Julliard aspirant cellist, and her up-and-coming rockstar boyfriend, Adam (Jamie Blackley).
The movie takes a turn when the family gets into a tragic accident, leaving Mia with the choice of choosing to join her family in death or stay back for the love of her life. The banger soundtrack and just the sheer existence of Adam make it hard to hold back tears.
Watch If I Stay on Prime Video
8. The Danish Girl (2015)
With lines like “I love you because you are the only person who made sense of me,” The Danish Girl comes on #8 in our list and is a directorial masterpiece, and you’d best believe you’ll cry ugly. This movie is a very different love story inspired by the lives of Lili Elbe (previously Einar Wegener) — one of the first known recipients of gender-affirming surgery, and Gerda Wegener (Alicia Vikander). While the film focuses on Einar’s (Eddie Redmayne) transition from male to female, its heart lies in the extraordinary relationship between Lili and Gerda.
Watch The Danish Girl on Prime Video
9. Me Before You (2016)
Who would’ve thought bumblebee tights could be the most romantic gift of all time? Me Before You is an adaptation of the 2012 novel by Jojo Moyes. It follows the unlikely relationship that builds between a tetraplegic man and his quirky caregiver that leaves you hopeful till the very end. The film boasts Sam Claflin and Emilia Clarke’s palpable on-screen chemistry, a romantic trip to Mauritius, throw in Ed Sheeran’s “Photograph” playing in the background — need we say more?
Watch Me Before You on Apple TV
10. Me and Earl and The Dying Girl (2015)
We have established that terminal illness mixed with a love story is always a foolproof formula to get the waterworks running. Me and Earl and The Dying Girl is a coming-of-age story of how, at the behest of his parents, socially awkward Greg (Thomas Mann), along with his “co-worker” Earl (RJ Cyler), befriends Rachel (Olivia Cooke), a classmate diagnosed with cancer. This poignant story is miles away from your typical YA movie, serving bouts of quirky, artsy, and tragic all in one platter.
Watch Me and Earl and The Dying Girl on Disney+
11. Irreplaceable You (2018)
As Julia Roberts once said, “You know it’s love when all you want is that person to be happy, even if you’re not part of their happiness” — this perfectly encapsulates the plot of Irreplaceable You. After being diagnosed with terminal cancer, Abbie (Gugu Mbatha-Raw) sets out to find someone to love and care for her childhood best friend-turned-fiancee, Sam (Michiel Huisman), after her death. If this isn’t love, we don’t know what is.
Watch Irreplaceable You on Netflix
12. Five Feet Apart (2019)
Last but not least, we have Justin Baldoni’s directorial debut, Five Feet Apart. This movie is a glimpse into the lives of friends turned lovers Will (Cole Sprouse) and Stella (Haley Lu Richardson), who suffer from Cystic Fibrosis (CF), with strong messages about making the most of life. The stone in their path is that CF patients must always stay at least six feet away from each other, but Stella and Will decide to steal a foot back and remain only “five feet apart.” The physical angst viewers feel when two people so in love are not allowed to embrace is indescribable. We dare you not to cry and if you want to laugh along as well, don’t forget to check out these 10 movies!
Watch Five Feet Apart on Netflix
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